For some reason... he'd invited upon himself the wrath of "creativity" which he'd formerly prided himself on seeking and upholding. Creativity.... To unlock creativity, or not to unlock creativity... that was the question. "Creativity" was such an educational buzzword. Perhaps forcing it upon busy students was not the answer, no matter how generous the deadline. You can't demand creativity.... or can you? Ken Robinson said school's were "killing creativity," and right now, the English teacher felt as if creativity were killing him.
"Rise, the red angel,
Have you not drowned and damned yourself
in wine?
Do glare at the limp body
that falls from the sky
For it is thine."
What the hell did that even mean? It sounded quite good actually, and as the English teacher walked towards Dasan, he couldn't help but think an entire bottle of wine might be essential to grading the rest of these "metafictions." Or, more accurately, metadisasters.
When Wendy finished her wrestling training, she went to a bar and drank some beer with her friend. Wendy drank 10 bottles of soju&beer, and she dozed off. While Wendy was sleeping, her friend found the post above. So the friend woke her up and showed it to Wendy. “Who the hell dared to wrote this trash?"
Trash... that was such a strong word. And Wendy. Whom among all these wonderful students was "Wendy." What had inspired "Wendy"? Why do students have to write about alcohol so much? It's not like they've even tasted it before. Perhaps that was it.
A Korean proverb says, “Birds hear words of daytime. (낮말은 새가 듣는다.)” But sometimes, birds do much more than just hearing words. Some birds are not only ‘word hearers’ but also ‘word carriers.’
Y.S RyuMarch 13, 2016 at 11:18 PM
It was very interesting to see a pelican being anthropomorphized- the bird shouted, read a letter, and even think about complicated things.
Can birds also hear English teachers crying inside over "complicated things"? Y.S Ryu was right though. This was an interesting beginning... until it got literally "messy."
The life philosophy of KMLA students is BCD; Birth, Chicken, and Death. I really want to tell how much students whom ate bloody chickens are suffering from pain. One of my best friends, Mitchell, pooped blood. He is suffering from diarrhea. Mike is vomiting every five minutes.
Poor Mitchell. An actual member of the class. The English teacher recalled discouraging students from using actual names. Which is why, apparently, some daring students thought it might be clever to mimic them.
Professor Garrioll was in love with the Kolakoski Sequence. He would start every class by writing, “One, two, two, one, one, two, one, two, two, one, two, and … Leo, what’s the next number? I would be very disappointed if you don’t get it. It’s a probability of 50 percent!”
What were these students smoking? Fumes from the chemistry lab must have been tampering with their brains, he considered as he passed several tombstones along a rubber path, all bearing names of students who contributed to KMLA greatness. Perhaps the "Kolakoski Sequence" would win one them a Nobel Prize. It did sound rather interesting. And yet, as the English teacher approached the front of the stairs of the Dasan Building, he decided not to enter its foreboding doors.... fearing the Kolakoski Virus might be present in the very scientific air of such a facility... where - obviously - most students spent more time on oddly named sequences than writing carefully written assignments for English Composition.
"Hello Mr. Garrioch!"
Two polite juniors, boys holding hands, streamed past the English teacher as he turned towards the soccer field. The hand holding was affectionate and innocent, and yet, he was reminded of one particular "romance novel" that perhaps suggested otherwise:
When he went there, Josh was waiting for him with the scent of perfume. The two were not the only people who were at the rooftop at that time. Samuel, the best friend of James', was there, too. Josh said. “Yes… I’m the one who wrote the letter,” with shy smile.
Did KMLA have such a rooftop?
ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
1. I didn't know three chain writings could be made into a story that has 2? 2.5? layers. The story is funny in itself that diverse crazy stories are intertwined, and you can never know what to expect.
1. I didn't know three chain writings could be made into a story that has 2? 2.5? layers. The story is funny in itself that diverse crazy stories are intertwined, and you can never know what to expect.
2. And all of it still makes sense so it's nice.
How to punish Jen. This is something the English teacher considered as he walked around the track. Why were these students encouraging each other to become William S. Burroughs? Jen surely needed to be punished. Perhaps Jen would like to explain to Mr. Garriol what this all meant:
Yes.. I’m going crazy.. Now I know what I really have to do: to be the Kungfu master. Let's go to the Shaolin Monastery. I will be back, you hairdresser!! I will shave my head and practice silent performance. Let me see if you can crumble me again! If you can't, then I'll make you bitterly feel the world of kungfu!!
Jen would be forced to perform kungfu. That seemed apropriate. And then, there was this:
Am I hurting your feelings? If so, good cuz' you deserve to be hurt. You are such a selfish creature. I know every human has selfishness in themselves, but they at least try to pretend they care about other people. I love myself, but I tell you that I love you for the sake of it. You were selfish not just in your mind, but with your acts as well. You never show any effort to tell me you love me. Do you even love me? Well, I'm starting doubt it.
As soon as she read this sentence, she dropped the letter because of a sudden engine noise made by the car rushing beside her. Being a little frightened, she turned back and picked up the paper. She could recognize a green Tico slowing down, stopping on the roadside nearby. The door opened, and it was obvious that ten years were not enough to fade his face out from her mind.
Romance and a Tico? Still better than Twilight, perhaps. But what about this:
Walking down the street, I met Yejoo, who used to be the “Queen Lion” of the “KMLA jungle”. She used to call herself like that. She graduated early for being such an excellent student, and did get double eyelids by plastic surgery. I asked her if she was having great days, even though I expected so.
“Hey! How you doin’?”
“Um… Not so good, actually. “
I was kind of confused.
Such dialogue! Stephanie Meyer take note!
The English teacher sighed, and decided to head back to the English Building. Not only was it time for him to actually grade these works of genius, but the track was no longer his alone. Miss Lee, the Chemistry teacher, power walked past him with an air of disdain, and he was made to feel as if he were trespassing. Zipped up in a black hoodie, he was reminded of this bit of "magic realism," which actually held some potential:
. Sure I could’ve run away, but frankly speaking, I wanted to be the first person to contact extraterritorial creature and get some college essay topic. Swinging my arms, some jelly-like substance made a sound, hitting my hand. Listening to the sound, I looked inside hoodie in awe for a while – there was a black hole.
Please swallow me, black hole! For I do not wish to destroy my students with honest feedback!
He found out he can feel waves by some neurons and he can feel something by ‘Netrocan Light’ - which is the light that human didn’t find yet- with visualizing.
"Shall I shine this Netrcoan light into a dancing hoodie in order to defy the Kalokoski Sequence!" The English teacher considered heading up into the mountains, so he could scream at the sky. "An average score below 89.5! Never before!"
He arrived back in his office, and decided to write a blog post - rife with honest criticism, which these students obviously needed. Babying them would achieve nothing, and soft, willfully positive praise for less than stellar work would only encourage them further into their terrible habits of not planning what they write AHEAD of time. It's as if they all just decided to be random toddlers getting high on sugar in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory.
He sat down at his computer, logged into his blog, and began to type:
And you want to know what the "Fourth Wall" is? This is me breaking it! This is no longer metaficiton! Those scores above are real! This blog post is real!
Honestly, during my entire time at KMLA, I have never been as disappointed as I am now with the general level of quality of a particular writing assignment. Most of these were "not good," and that's being polite. So, I have to ask myself... did I explain it properly? Did we discuss it enough? What went wrong????? Because I have done this assignment with EVERY junior writing class since I started at KMLA, and never has this happened! Why???? What went wrong?
First of all, most of the chain-writing was somewhat useless. That might be it. In the past, when I've done this assignment, I created prompts to get students writing different things for specific purposes. Maybe the "freedom" I gave you backfired. Or, I should have made rules - such as "make sense" and "take it seriously" and "don't write about KMLA." I think I did suggest the first two, if not the latter.
Problems:
1) Many of you didn't follow the rules. Using more than one chainwriting? That's crazy! Why would you make an already complicated writing assignment MORE COMPLICATED! I literally had to stop myself from bashing my head against my desk.
2) Basic grammar and spelling. Yes, I know some students have an advantage in terms of language ability and are humanities students who have lived abroad. BUT - surely you can use spell check and notice grade-school level errors I would barely tolerate from a GLPS student. RE-READ! Inspect your work before you post it or print it!
3) SERVE YOUR READER! Your reader is the only reason you should be writing. Don't be greedy with basic details and courtesy. Don't leave them behind. Take them on a guided tour of your imagination and don't throw away the map! The 5 W's are tantamount to ethical communication. Forget one and you've forgotten them all! No one wants to read drug-induced ramblings.
4) Take things seriously! This is the only assignment you've had so far. I gave you plenty of time to do it. We spent lots of time on it. I gave an extension. Put in some effort and don't do it 15 minutes before class starts! Don't treat writing assignments (even fun "creative" ones) as arbitrary slap-this-and-that-together opportunities to scroll nonsense ----------------------------------------------!
The English teacher stopped himself. Was this what he really wanted to say to students? Wasn't it too harsh? What happens if they cry? Or seek revenge when it comes time to complete the teacher evaluation?
Perhaps he would allow them to write it again. But... he considered. Wasn't that like asking for more mental abuse? Hadn't he suffered enough?
Yes. He had. And so, he pressed PUBLISH.
_________________________________
"Seriously, I hate Mr. Garrioll!"
Joss and Leon sat together on the 11th floor, as they tried to figure out what Ivy League university they were.
"What does he know? Your story was brilliant!"
"Seriously! I say we feed him some chicken!"
"Or send Wendy after him!"
The sound of daegum signaled it was time for Honjung, and as they rose from their seats, they realized someone had been standing behind them all along. And it wasn't Mr. Kim.
"One, two, two, one, one, two, one, two, two, one, two, and … Leon, what’s the next number? I would be very disappointed if you don’t get it. It’s a probability of 50 percent!”
and then...
WHACK!
FINIS
"And now you know what metafiction is! Muhahahahahaha!"
The English teacher left the dormitory, got into his car, and never came back.
